Who Gave You Permission?

And after he had come into the temple precinct the chief priest and the elders of the people approached him as he was teaching and said ¨By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?¨  Matthew 21:23 (Byington)

Jesus was an affront to the religious leaders of His day.  We went around taking into His own hands the healing and preaching to the people.  He taught the people in the countryside and even inside of the church buildings of the capital cities.  The leaders came and asked Him, ¨Who told You that You can go and do all this here?´ ´Who gave You permission?¨

Instead of diving into a heated discussion, Jesus simply turned the question around upon them.  Sometimes we get a little disoriented while bustling about and busying ourselves with this business we call religion.  We have our church buildings, meetings, social structures and commonly accepted manners and customs.  It is so easy for us to miss the trees for the forest, or the forest for the trees.

We forget, as did the elders and priests, that God is alive, present and more aware of what is happening than you and I.  He is supposed to be our reason for being here and doing all that we do.  We come to religion to turn ourselves towards, and honor God.  We come here to approach Him.  We come to adjust ourselves in the most pure and meaningful way possible for each one of us.  But how much of the time, is that what we really do?

Jesus´ little question to them about the baptism and spirit given to John the Baptist was in essence, drawing the attention to this fact.  We may have a certain degree of responsibility to our fellow-men in that we should always reflect and point them towards Christ.  But the one thought that should overshadow all else and taint it to its true color, should be God.  The all-powerful, living God should be present in all our thoughts.

Whenever we do something, instead of coldly dedicating it to Him then running off to carry whatever it is without Him, we should do this thing with Him and to Him.  He should be that presence we carry with us always.  Our attitude should always be bowed to His presence and His opinion and approval.

So many times we say, ¨God wants this!¨ and we say it as if the authority was given directly from Him.  But in actuality it was us who by our word, try to give authority to God.  We are giving God´s consent for it.  We forgot to stop and bring it before Him in all honesty and wait for His response towards it.  This is a common mistake and one we each commit continually.

Dear Jesus, thank you for being so gentle as You teach us Your ways.  Thank you for not exercising the authority given You by Your Father and judging us for our lack of vision.  When we don´t see where You are going with things, so often we step in. Teach us and help us learn to keep You present in all things.  Do not let us continue to step out on our misguided confidence and knowledge.  You have authority because Your Father is with You.  God is here and in moving in our lives.  Help us to tune ourselves to that before we consider our ways, traditions, buildings or even  our religion.

In Your name we pray,

Amen